InSight Collecting Mars Weather Data

February 19, 2019

This artist's concept shows NASA's InSight lander with its instruments deployed on the Martian surface. InSight's package of weather sensors, called the Auxiliary Payload Subsystem (APSS), includes an air pressure sensor inside the lander — its inlet is visible on InSight's deck — and two air temperature and wind sensors on the deck. Under the deck's edge is a magnetometer, provided by UCLA, to measure changes in the local magnetic field that could also influence SEIS.

InSight's air temperature and wind sensors are actually refurbished spares built for Curiosity's Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS). Called Temperature and Wind for InSight (TWINS), these two east- and west-facing booms sit on the lander's deck and were provided by Spain's Centro de Astrobiología (CAB).

JPL manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its cruise stage and lander, and supports spacecraft operations for the mission.

A number of European partners, including France's Centre National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), are supporting the InSight mission. CNES and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP) provided the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument, with significant contributions from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in Zurich, Switzerland, Imperial College London and Oxford University in the United Kingdom, and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3) instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research Center (CBK) of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland. Spain’s Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) supplied the wind sensors.